Letting agents

Living in London I find myself moving on average once a year. The most unfortunate consequence of this is that I have to deal with letting agents. It's pretty clear to me that evolution has taken a strange course with these 'people'.

As I write this, there is a loud camp guy standing outside my house waiting to show some strangers around. He was due to show them round 35 mins ago and yet he hasn't come and apologised and acknowledged that they're unlikely to turn up. Nor has he thought that it's a rainy night and it might be better to come in and have a cuppa with us in the warm. No, he's standing shivering holding on to the vain hope that they turn up. I might take him a hot water bottle.

While I slightly pity the guy, I'm more annoyed than anything. The last couple of weekends they've been due to show people round but they haven't showed up. If I was supposed to go round to someone's house and intrude on their weekend then I'm certain I'd let them know if I was going to turn up. The thing troubling me now is that they might've actually been here all the time, waiting outside. Now I'm not scared or anything, it's just odd that someone would hang around outside other people's homes at the weekend. What strange people.

He's still there by the way

I get most annoyed by hearing them speak about houses, which they insist on calling properties. That winds me up. It's a house or flat, they only say property so that they can tell their mum they used a word with 3 syllables. This guy has been telling people that our sofa will be replaced. We were told that 14 months ago. It hasn't been replaced. They make bullish predictions about the amount of time it takes to get to the tube or the shops. And the worst thing of all is we lap it up! When we want to be convinced that somewhere is good enough why do we take their advice? They hang around outdoors in the rain, they're unable to control the volume of their voice and they're not even good enough to sell houses! They're only deemed worthy enough to show people lettings.

Hopefully soon I'll be able to buy somewhere, part of me hopes that the sales people will be a new breed. That they'll talk sense at a reasonable volume and that they'll let people know when they're not showing up. I think I might be disappointed...

Anyway, got to go, he's just rung the door bell and they've arrived. 50 minutes late. I'll get him a towel, he's a little damp now.